Tue Feb 21, 2012 at 09:00:00 AM EST

President

Arizona: A new Public Policy Polling survey in Arizona finds Mitt Romney with a small lead. Romney leads Santorum 36 to 33%. Newt Gingrich is third at 16% and Ron Paul fourth at 9%. Santorum is better liked by Arizona Republicans than Romney, Santorum's at +34 (61/27), while Romney's at +24 (58/34).

Michigan: A new Public Policy Polling survey in Michigan shows Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney by four points in the GOP presidential race, 37% to 33%, followed by Ron Paul at 15% and Newt Gingrich at 10%. A We Ask America poll in Michigan finds Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum tied at 29% each. They are followed by Ron Paul at 12% and Newt Gingrich at 10%.

Oklahoma: A new Tulsa World poll in Oklahoma finds Rick Santorum leading the GOP presidential race with 39%, followed by Mitt Romney at 23%, Newt Gingrich at 18% and Ron Paul at 13%. The Oklahoma primary is on March 6.

Paul: Ron Paul raised $4.5 million in January and a money bomb last week brought in another $1.7 million. His $13.3 million haul in the 4th quarter of 2011 was second behind only Mitt Romney.

Restore Our Future: The pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future spent $14 million in January. That's more than twice the nearly $7 million the super PAC raised in January, although Restore Our Future finished the month with more than $16 million in the bank.

Romney: Mitt Romney is enlisting the help of Donald Trump this week in Michigan. Trump is scheduled to do a series of radio interviews this week on local stations from Traverse City to Detroit touting Mitt Romney and attacking Rick Santorum.

Texas: A new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll shows Rick Santorum with a big lead in the Republican presidential race with 45%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 18%, Mitt Romney at 16% and Ron Paul at 14%. Texas still doesn't have all of its congressional and legislative maps in place so May 29 appears to be the earliest possible primary date.

Senate

Missouri: Sen. Claire McCaskill, preparing for a tough race this Fall, is responding to two ads by the state Republican Party and Crossroads GPS with spots of her own. One responds to a Crossroads ad attacking her for backing Obama's compromise on the rule requiring church related institutions to provide free contraception coverage. The other touts her Missouri roots and political independence. The Republican Party and its allies have already spent several million dollars on negative advertising against McCaskill.

South Carolina: Sen. Lindsey Graham, despite grumblings of a primary challenge from the right, looks like a strong favorite in 2014. All four freshman SC Republican congressman have disavowed any interest in challenging Graham. One possibility who has not ruled out a race, State Sen. Tom Davis from Beaufort.

Virginia: A new Christopher Newport University poll in Virginia shows George Allen edging Tim Kaine in the U.S. Senate race, 42% to 40%.

House

AZ-4: Sheriff Paul Babeu went on offense in an interview with CNN, saying the accusation he threatened his former boyfriend with deportation was false, and that he only requested the man stop using his political campaign's website and Twitter account to post private information. "One, he's legal. He has said that. I've said that. And then, in addition, this whole thing about deportation, we all know I don't have deportation authority," Babeu said.

CA-26: Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D) of Ventura County will run for the 26th Congressional District. The Democrats were left without a strong candidate here after Supervisor Steve Bennett dropped out last week. Republican Sen. Tony Strickland of Moorpark and Supervisor Linda Parks of Thousand Oaks, who has said she may run as an independent, are also in the race.

CO-2: Businessman Eric Weissmann is preparing a campaign against Rep. Jared Polis. Weissmann said he primarily plans to self fund his campaign, but declined to say how much he'd be willing to spend. The 2nd District became more competitive after redistricting, but still remains Democratic leaning. New voter registration statistics show 34 percent of active voters registered listed as Democrats, 32 percent registered as Republicans, and 33 percent unaffiliated. Last year, Democrats had a four point advantage.

MA-9: Rep. Bill Keating has dodged a primary rematch with former State Sen. Robert O'Leary. Keating beat O'Leary by a little over a thousand votes in 2010. Local District Attorney Sam Sutter is also running for the seat in the Democratic primary. Keating's home of Quincy was drawn out of the new 9th District, causing him to change his primary residence to a summer house on Cape Cod.

NC-11: Tea Party aligned ophthalmologist Dan Eichenbaum said he would not file to run for Congress in North Carolina's 11th district. Eichenbaum won 34 percent of the vote in the 2010 Republican primary for the district. Real estate investor Mark Meadows, businessman Ethan Wingfield, and local district attorney Jeff Hunt are all competing for the Republican nomination.

NC-12: After suggesting he was unsure whether he would run for another term, Rep. Mel Watt has filed to run for reelection.

Redistricting

Minnesota: The Minnesota Special Redistricting panel intends to release its redistricting plan at 1 p.m. today by posting maps and the panel's orders online.

The Miami Herald with their usual biased (and biased wording) hit pieces against any Republican running for office in Florida, almost always without success. Now on Connie Mack, but this one is really bs.
http://www.miamiherald.com/201...

According to the Mitchell poll, he's now expanded his lead in the Detroit area (likely meaning he's up in Washtenaw, Oakland, Wayne and Macomb), has taken a decisive lead in the Lansing market (Ingham, Jackson, Clinton, Eaton and maybe Livingston), and is now edging Santorum in northern Michigan (I would guess in Traverse City and Alpena for sure, maybe in the UP as well).

What this likely means right now is that Romney wins districts 1, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. Santorum would win 2-6 and 10. This presumes that things stay static, which obviously isn't going to happen. If Romney continues advertising as he has, I foresee him winning everywhere save perhaps for Grand Rapids and the surrounding area.

I've actually seen pro-Santorum ads as much as I've seen anti-Santorum/pro-Romney ads. Romney has spent more but, from my experience, Santorum isn't doing too bad. My feeling is Santorum wins narrowly (by 2% or so) but I could see Romney winning narrowly too.

If you take the last 4 polls together, there are 2 with Allen leading by 2, 1 with Kaine leading by 1, and 1 with a tie. A 2 point lead for either side isn't much anyway-it's basically a tossup and almost certainly will remain so until November.

Because the MO Senate districts were thrown out a new panel needs to convene.

I haven't heard yet if the likely appointees are wanting to adopt that latest court panel as is (which they can because it was only invalidated due to the panel not authorized to correct its own work after releasing the first version), use as a baseline but make minor tweaks, or attempt to redraw from scratch.

I have been saying this for over a year now. The CD map will be standpat except for some adjustments due to population changes. I do not look for a major redraw of lines because population does not require it this year in MN. Really the only thing to watch IMO is CD7. It needs about 40K in population. That can either come from CD8 or CD6. Logically it should come from CD6 as its over populated but two factors IMO are in play there.

1st the logical county to get would be Stearns. Traditionaly the judges do not split non urban counties down the middle and that's what CD8 needs. So maybe CD8 gets rest of Beltrami or a bit of other northern (non iron range counties) from CD8. That would mean CD8 might get Benton county. This move would make CD7 a bit more D(its a D seat) while CD8 would become a bit more R (its an R seat)but its a slight move and that's what standpat does. If you have to change seats a bit you make D seats more D while R seats become a bit more R.

On legislative maps I look for the GOP to benefit a bit. The GOP seats on the whole are overpopulated while the D seats (on the whole)are underpopulated. Its hard to see IMO the GOP in a fair judicial maps that respects county and city lines loses anything. I do not look for dramatic changes in the legislative maps but as noted GOP districts are needing to shed voters, on the whole, while the D seats need to gain voters.

1. it will lose the rest of Beltrami to the 8th and the 8th will end up with all of Hubbard and Wadena. This would pull the south end of the 8th district out of the burbs, and in return the 7th gets the rest of Stearns (including St. Cloud).

2. The 8th takes in Benton County, loses the rest of Beltrami to the 7th, and the 7th ends up with Wadena, and all of Stearns EXCEPT St. Cloud. This keeps the current southern border of the 8th more or less the same.

3. The 7th grabs the rural southwestern counties, pulls out of Beltrami, takes in a portion of Stearns County for population. This leaves the awkward scenario where St. Cloud remains in a metro district. But that is a result of less than 5/8 of the population living in the metro with 5 districts.

Now, there are scenarios where St. Cloud ends up in the 8th, but I see that as less likely.

to be a 64K gorilla in the room. Or actually a 150K gorilla ( 2010 population of Stearns county) to be precise. It really changes CD7 or CD8 if you include all of it in either seat. You have to move lots of counties around.

Yet to split it three or two ways to smooth out CD6, CD7 and CD8 is not quite fair. Its not geography per say that puts its at the hub of three CDs. Its how the maps were drawn in 1992 & 2002. So I think Stearns stays in CD6 because if you moved in total its a big deal. Chopping it in half would a precedence and likely lead to howls. Of course CD6 is kinda of a leftover seat with bits and pieces of seats that were thrown together but I don't think it gets chopped up. I don't look for a complete makeover of the current map with lots of counties being moved.

The western side of the county is butts up against MN-7 now. and pre-2003 ALL of Stearns County was in MN-7. Is it really fair to have farmers in Albany and Holdingford represented by a suburbanites in Stillwater? The bulk of the county is very much outstate Minnesota. And I wouldn't even call St. Cloud suburban, as relatively few people make the 90 mile commute to the cities. IMO, if you want to keep Stearns County whole (which is actually something that makes logical sense) it has to be in the 7th. It was there before. If you try to put it all in the 6th, you have to move the 6th entirely out of the east metro. There are simply too many people to connect Stillwater to Sauk Centre anymore. Once Stearns county is allocated, the rest of the map really falls into place. But it is just an awkward piece if land in the middle of a bunch of nothing, bit not geographically located to anchor its own district (unlike St. Louis and Olmsted).

I don't think that keeping Stearns County whole should be the holy grail in redistricting either. Other than Hennepin (which has to be split) there are 3 other counties that are bigger than Stearns County that are already split. Anoka, Washington and Dakota. And Anoka is split 3 ways! How is it fair to hold the smaller Stearns County to a different standard than those 3?

There is an easy fix which would actually help the GOP. Adopt the same 2-4-4 plan for the Senate a lot of other states with four year terms for senate use. Especially as the 2014 seats are better for them than the 2012 ones under the new map.

The main gripe against it is that the senate is immune to one cycle waves, as the entire body is up for reelection at the sane time. For instance, the 2008 election had no effect on the Minnesota Senate, as the elections were held in 06 and 10.

There's going to be a Romney and non-Romney everywhere. In Arizona, the Romney might be 41% and non-Romney 47%, with Paul at 12%. In Georgia, the Romney might 30% and the non-Romney 58%. Thus, Romney will compete. He runs strongest in urban areas. You'll have districts with 25,000 voters, as opposed to 225,000 in rural ones.

He did, in all fairness, garner 30 percent in '08. He did it by winning Cobb, DeKalb, Forsythe, Fulton and Gwinnett, which, altogether, amounted to about a third of the primary vote. He'll bomb horrifically everywhere else, just as he did in '08, but holding onto those five counties alone should ensure at least 25 percent.

If he wins those, he gets GA-4, 5, 6, and 7, and maybe GA-11 and GA-13. Romney could get 25% of the vote and finish behind Gingrich at 30% and take 25-30 of the state's 73 delegates. Georgia isn't a state he can afford to sit out. Tennessee, on the other hand, is a winner-take-all by CD. He probably only takes TN-5 and TN-9 and only if he does well. As long as he clears 20%, he'll get at least 7 delegates.

They're replacing the local "amatuer" Brooklyn GOP operatives with one of their own "professional" operatives. This is probably a 1st step towards State Senate GOP involvement in the campaign. Basically the Albany folks are taking over.

The 2011 Legislative Reapportionment Commission will meet at 1 p.m. in the main Capitol to consider adopting the new plan after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in January tossed out the redrawn district maps, saying numerous splits of municipalities were not absolutely necessary.

That was posted yesterday, so the campaign kickoff is on the 29th. The kickoff is at the fort douglas military museum. I'm a big believer that voters should have a choice, I think it's healthy for Democracy that each party puts up a credible candidate, so this makes me very happy even though he will obviously be crushed.

This is OT for RRH but it just goes to show you how liberal Evanston has become.

They are eliminating honors classes at Evanston Township High School.

Why would they do something so stupid?

According to those who pushed for it, it's because of "racism in the class level system" and "the widening academic gap between socioeconomic classes" at ETHS.

So, they're going to directly screw over honors students in the name of equalizing the playing field? Last I checked, nearly anyone can sign up for honors classes at most schools (including ETHS, I think). What they're doing is just so illogical and it's the kind of crap that happens when progressives dominate an electoral body, whether it be a school board or Congress. This is the social justice agenda that "progressives" want to ram down our throats when they get into office.

So, to make this electorally relevant, why can't the GOP use absolute BS like this to counter Democrats' claims that we are the party with an "extreme" social agenda.

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and currently living in Barcelona.
Bob Dold for Congress, Mark Kirk for Senate, Andy Hill for WA Governor, Scott Walker for President!

I have never met a Progressive online or in real life who wanted to eliminate Honors Programs. I've never even heard that from anyone on either side of the aisle say that.

Attributing this to "Progressives" is like attributing the Girl Scout thing from Indiana to "Conservatives". I can guarantee you the vast majority of Progressives would not be for this. I certainly am not.

But the political implications are quite different, and the broader question I have is whether eliminating all honors courses would even be an option under IL SBOE rules? The NC DPI rules certainly wouldn't allow for it, even assuming the electorate in some ultra-liberal enclave theoretically wanted it.

Thankfully I was wise enough to get my behind out of blue state America at a young enough age where it's not going to affect me too much. I cannot say it enough. If you still live in Boston, New York, Philly, DC, Chicago, or (shudder) California, you don't know what you are missing. I cannot believe that any amount of family history, geographic preference or any other factor could deem living with these people worth it. My quality of life has SKYROCKETED since I moved to Texas. It's a dream come true.

The court's decision in the new case holds the potential to undo an accommodation reached in the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger: that public colleges and universities could not use a point system to boost minority enrollment but could take race into account in vaguer way to ensure academic diversity.

I mean for us who care more about the composition of the US House. The leg map matters most to me in terms of whether it can produce an R majority in the year 2020, when we can potentially hold the pen or stop Democrats from fully controlling it...

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and currently living in Barcelona.
Bob Dold for Congress, Mark Kirk for Senate, Andy Hill for WA Governor, Scott Walker for President!

Follow #mnleg, #mnmap, #mnmaps or #redistricting to see a bunch of capitol staffers freaking out. I am working in the state office building right now, and it became unusually silent as I think the entire building collectively loaded the maps at once.

Paulsen is happy
Kline is safe, but his district got more marginal for his retirement
Mccollum got the bridge she didn't want
Cravaack is still DOA in November, as the 8th didn't change much at all.
Peterson adds new farmers, but is still fine.

Come January 2013 I bet he moves to New Hampshire. He doesn't have terribly deep roots in Minnesota anyways. He spent is military career out of state, and as a pilot afterwards he wasn't in one place very long.

I guess they don't count. And I guess Democrats didn't spend any money themselves from their campaign accounts or the DCCC. What gets me is that the Democrats are so delusional that they believe:

1. They did a great job.
2. America would love them and never vote for Republicans if they'd just communicated what a great job they did.
3. Since people love them, it's the disinformation and lies in advertising that sunk their candidates.

I'm simultaneously offended and encouraged by this. They are saying that no reasonable person could disagree with them and that conservatism is illegitimate. And they are deluded into believing that advertising has that great an impact on a congressional race.

What's encouraging is that I don't think they have any idea why people vote Republican. And if you don't understand why people aren't voting for you, then you can't fix the problem. Say what you want about our guys, but they knew exactly why they were kicked out.